1926 - Technology

Technology

An improved waterproof cellophane developed by E. I. du Pont chemists William Hale Church and Karl Edwin Prindle will revolutionize packaging (see Brandenberger, 1912). DuPont has been making cellophane at Buffalo, N.Y., since acquiring U.S. rights early in 1924, selling it initially for $2.65/lb. (see tobacco, 1930).

Sintered carbide is introduced by Fried. Krupp of Essen, whose nonferrous metal alloy on a tungsten carbide base enables machine tools to cut steel at 150 meters per minute instead of eight meters.

Automatic rifle inventor John M. Browning dies near Liège, Belgium, November 26 at age 71.

Alabama-born B. F. Goodrich chemist Waldo (Lonsbury) Semon, 27, pioneers synthetic rubber, using catalysts in an effort to extract the chlorine from the polymer polyvinyl chloride invented in 1872 by the late Eugen Baumann (see Nieuwland, 1925). He polymerizes PVC into a white powder, plasticizes the PVC powder with agents such as tricresylphosphate, and produces a workable synthetic that can be rolled and treated like rubber. The vinyl product is odorless, weatherproof, age- and acid-resistant, when rolled into a ball it bounces down a hallway, and it will be introduced commercially in 1933 under the name Koroseal (see Neoprene, 1931; butadiene, 1939).